My guess is that there are less than 5,000 professional/proprietary traders in the US (this includes NYSE Specialists, NASDAQ MM's, Banks and Institutions, and, of course, firms like ours. The number was about 8,000 a couple of years ago.

There of course many times that number of retail traders, some of whom make a living at it.

Someone published a report on this recently. They were on CNBC about two months ago. I don't remember who it was or what organization they were part of. If I remember correctly, the total number was about 5000. This included professional daytraders (prop), specialists, floor brokers, etc. It did not include traders at large firms like Lehman or Goldman. I think the breakdown of professional daytraders was about 1500--2000.

I can't and refuse to believe that there are just 5k traders. There are at least a few hundred nyse/amex specialists. Each of the 10 large firms have trading floors with at least 100 traders and usually more. Just think of how many mm you see displayed on your montage. Most guys can't make a market in more than a few names at once, and some only make one stock all day. Think of how many stocks there are. Finally, the prop firms have their traders. I have to assume that there are at least 10k prop traders out there. As for retail guys:
There have to be at least 20-40k of us. Who else brings in all that liquidity. When I say retail, I dont mean some guy who makes even 5 trades a week through etrade. I mean people like me who are at cyber and make over 200 trades a month. Out of the retail crowd, I bet only 10% or so maximum are profitable. But I bet it's the same guys every year who make the money.

I would think the number would be higher than 5,000. The exchanges in Chicago alone have this many outstanding memberships. Even assuming only half the seats are used by a "real trader", you have more in NY, Kansas City and Minneapolis, San Fransisco, Philadelphia and Boston. These are the cities. Add tho this the people at prop firms, hedge funds and places like Goldman, Lehman etc. Then, you've got numerous exchanges which are very active in London, Germany, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore etc, and you are probably dealing with more people then we think..and this number does not include the retail traders who are (or are trying to) stake a claim in the game. So to me, 5000 seems a bit low...besides, I refuse to believe that 6% of the worlds traders are members of my chatroom.

Originally posted by Bachelier AFAIK the number is expanding, not only my firm is hiring, but it seems Worldco and Bright are too.

More...

We are growing, but the overall numbers for the industry are down from 1999 by about 25-30 % . I think the industry was at a high of about 8000-10000 at that point. With the closure of the various regional exchanges, dozens of "daytrading firms" (harbor, block were the bigger ones), there has been a consolidtation and "reallocation" going on.

We did some articles which used the growth of computer companies to the trading industry...and it has taken the same path....down to a fewer, yet stronger, number of traders and firms.

Again, I would like to hear some "real" stats (not those spouted by "trading associations" etc., which I thought were bogus anyway)..